I think the most impressive game of the match was played by Buffalo Grove's freshman Andrey Puzanov on 5th Board against Prospect's Mike Zwolenik. After a fairly uneventful opening and middle game, the players reached a double rook ending where Andrey was up a pawn. Rook endings have a tendency to be drawish in part because rooks are wonderful attackers but somewhat clumsy defenders. Moreover they don't seem nearly as adept as knights, bishops and queens at simultaneously attacking and defending. They often are forced to choose one or the other. What frequently happens is one player starts attacking his opponent's pawns while leaving his own pawns undefended. The result is both players left with nothing but a king and a rook.
Andrey did a terrific job of maneuvering his rooks patiently while waiting for the right moment to attack. Mike defended well, but a subtle mistake gave Andrey the opportunity to go on the attack at a point when Mike was not quite ready to do so thereby allowing Andrey to briefly go ahead by two paws. While Andrey could not maintain the second pawn, Mike was forced to allow the exchange of rooks. In the resulting king and pawn ending, Andrey played very precisely to win the full point.
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1 comment:
This freshie is good. We're definetely going to battle for boards next year.
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